[Not News:] Ohio Poll: Kasich approval worse than Taft’s

It shows Kasich with a 40% approval rating (ten points higher than January’s Quinnipiac), but with 47% of Ohioans disapproving (twenty-five points higher than January’s Quinnipiac.)

Not since Governor Dick Celeste has the Ohio Poll registered a lower approval rating for first-term Ohio Governor this early in his term. (Strickland polled at 68%; Voinovich at 61%; and Taft at 48%.) Not since Dick Celeste in 1983 has a first-term Governor been under water in his approval/disapproval rating (32%/45%) this early in his Administration.

Kasich’s approval rating takes a jump with registered voters coming in at 42% to 46%. However, that’s about the best news Kasich gets besides his 65% approval rating among Republicans. Independents, a large part of Kasich’s reason for winning, have abandoned him, giving him an approval rating of only 30% to 55% disapproving.

Kasich’s handing on the economy also gets low marks similar to his approval rating: 38% approving; 49% disapproving.

Here’s the SB 5 effect: Kasich gets a 21% approval rating to 72% disapproval rating among union households that is worse than his 23%/66% approval/disapproval rating among Democrats.

Kasich likes to brag about how he’s visited Cleveland nearly a dozen times already since becoming Governor. It’s not helping him much. The NEO region tags his approval/disapproval 36% to 51%; the worst in the State that has a statistically reliable sample (the SEO region comes in at 16%/74%, but the Ohio Poll notes its sample in the region is too small to be considered statistically reliable.) Kasich doesn’t even get a majority of SWO voters, the GOP’s geographical base, to approve of his job performance.

On the question of the budget, 54% of registered voters would prefer to see the State’s budget balanced with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts over purely a reduction of spending 35%. In other words, voters aren’t likely going to like what they see in Kasich’s budget.

The good news for the Governor is that it appears in NWO, the jury is still out on him. The bad news is that African-American voters, female voters,voters under 65 (particularly young voters), and union voters all disapprove of Kasich’s job performance and performance on the economy.

The fact that Kasich’s disapproval rating is five points higher than his approval rating in Southwest Ohio is very surprising. You almost have to wonder how Kasich is able to keep an approval rating of 51% to 41% in central Ohio (thanks, Columbus Dispatch and its related media companies.)

Kasich can rest assured that he, like Celeste, has three more years to turn his poll numbers around before the 2014 campaign starts to heat up. Unfortunately for him, though, he’s about to release a politically unpopular budget in which he has no popular support and a bunch of nervous Republicans legislators who don’t all have the luxury of waiting until 2014 to see if Kasich’s numbers improve.

In other words, this isn’t exactly a great time for Kasich to have bad poll numbers.

Yep, having union households more united against you than Democrats or Republican in support is not a good thing for Kasich.

Ohiojerry

Your HISTORY in 2014 … you are a money crab’n piece of work. Driving your Bus over the middle class 100% … looking out for your upper class, stuffing your pockets and yours from us. Way don’t you and your conies take the cuts YOU are FORCE’n On US!!!!!!

Ohiojerry

Figures has to be approved by his STAFF!!!!!

Anonymous

Kasich’s already said he isn’t going to run for a second term. And he’s acting like it — making it clear he’s just going to grab as much as he can in four years for himself and his rich friends and then run out the door, much wealthier, leaving behind a pile of rubble. He doesn’t care. But the Republicans in the legislature who are rolling over for him will be the target of voters’ wrath.

Anonymous

He hasn’t exactly said he isn’t running for a second term. He’s just indicated that he won’t govern like he’s concerned about being re-elected.

His disapproval (47%) is the highest since the poll began, worse than Celeste’s. He may not beat out Dick for Least Liked, but he takes the crown for Most Disliked.

Anonymous

Actually, he DID say that during the campaign. He said he just needed four years to “fix” everything and then he’d be done. Well, we’re finding out what he meant by “fix,” aren’t we?

Anonymous

Fair point….

buckeyekelly

I want the names of the 22% of Democrats who approve this tool. They don’t get to play on my team.

Greg Soper

Once we repeal SB5 in November, it will be cutting of his legs. 59 Republican House members and 15 Republicans up for elections will try to distance themselves from Pharaoh Kasich.

Our goal now is not only to defeat Sb5, but soundlt defeat by sb5

Anonymous

We officially know the percentage of Democrats who don’t read Plunderbund.

Anonymous

In other news… what kind of intervention needs to be done for the nearly 25% of Democrats and union households who APPROVE of Kasich so far?

Anonymous

Tell that to the folks at U.C. who conduct the Ohio Poll.

Anonymous

The U.C. Institute which conducted this poll is well regarded in this State and across the nation as the gold standard of public opinion polling in Ohio. You need to try harder.

Madashell

Keep kidding yourself. Although, I do foresee the Tea Partiers dropping lots of dough to get this issue passed, people have had enough! The wrecking ball mentality, created by the Republican Aristocracy , thwarted upon the majority of Ohioans has done two things. 1) It has assured Obama a re-election, and 2) It has guaranteed that the pendulum will sweep back to the left in 2012. The Republicans have alienated themselves from every voter except the filthy rich and that only represents about 1% of the population. The only thing that got them into office in the first place was the guise of lowering taxes, but when the public realized that lower taxes meant getting gauged somewhere else or in worse cases, losing jobs (SB5, HB69, SB3, Unemployment tax…) voter remorse set in. This debacle will be corrected in November (and that’s coming from a card-carrying Republican)!